11th Doctor’s Companions

Amy Pond

Amelia “Amy” Pond, was the first companion of the Doctor’s eleventh incarnation. She was the girlfriend and later wife of Rory Williams, and mother of Melody Pond, who later became known as River Song. When River married the Doctor, Amy became his mother-in-law. Amy died aged 87 at some point prior to 2012 after allowing aWeeping Angel to send her back in time, hoping to be reunited with her husband. She was buried beside Rory in a graveyard in New York.

Amelia first met the Doctor in April 1996. His TARDIS, damaged by his regeneration, crashed in her backyard garden. He offered to take her with him, despite her being, at only seven years of age, considerably younger than even the stowaway Adric was. To stabilise the engines, the Doctor took the TARDIS for what he thought would be a quick five-minute trip into the future. Believing that only five minutes had passed, he returned in 2008 when Amelia, now calling herself “Amy”, had become Rory’s girlfriend and wasworking as a kissogram. At the time of the Doctor’s return, she was wearing a mock woman police uniform, causing him to believe her to be a police officer just as she had assumed him to be twelve years earlier because of the TARDIS’ exterior. Amy was engaged to be marry to Rory on 26 June 2010. On the night of 25 June, the Doctor returned to keep his fourteen-year-old promise. She joined him on condition she be returned before morning, but did not mention her wedding.

River Song

“River Song” was the primary alias of the third incarnation of Melody Pond, a “child of the TARDIS” and a known wife of the Eleventh Doctor. She was human with Time Lord characteristics, conceived by her parents, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, aboard the TARDIS as it travelled through the time vortex, and then conditioned by the Silence. This gave her great strength, the ability to regenerate and a great understanding of the complex principles of time and space. She loved the Doctor, and shared a long-lasting relationship with him. River was one of the very few people who knew the Doctor’s true name.

Melody was stolen from her parents as an infant by Madame Kovarian to become a weapon against the Doctor. After potentially her second regeneration, she killed the Eleventh Doctor, but then broke her mental conditioning to give her remaining regenerations to revive him.

The Doctor and her parents left her to make her own way in the universe. River became an archaeologist so she could track the Doctor through time. She crossed paths with the Doctor on several occasions, generally with the result that she was meeting him at progressively earlier points in his Time stream. In order to avoid temporal paradoxes, the Doctor gave her a diary to keep track of their meetings and to prevent her from revealing any “spoilers” about his own future. River died saving the Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble and the 4,022 people stored in the computer system in the Library. The Tenth Doctor saved her consciousness digitally to the Library’s computer system CAL. This data echo desired a true goodbye from the Doctor, and persisted for some time.

Rory Williams

Rory Williams was Amy Pond’s husband. He became a companion of the Eleventh Doctor on the night before their wedding, however he died and was erased from all of history after being absorbed by the Time Field. Shortly before the Pandorica was opened, Rory reappeared and waited for Amy to come out of the Pandorica by guarding it for 1,894 years. He was restored to normal self after the Doctor induced the second Big Bang. He went on to marry Amy and resumed travelling with her and the Doctor. During this time, his child, Melody Pond, was born. When the Doctor married River, Rory became his father-in-law. In 2012, he was sent back in time by a Weeping Angel, and was soon followed through time by his wife. He died at age 82 some time before 2012. His gravestone stood in a graveyard in New York.

Craig Owens

When Amy got stuck in the TARDIS with no way to land it, the Doctor decided to rent a room from Craig Owens while investigating a strange phenomenon coming from the second floor of Craig’s home. After some time of living with the Doctor, Craig wanted him to leave,prompting the Doctor to headbutted Craig to telepathically explain his predicament and gain Craig’s help confronting the enemy upstairs. Craig learned about the Doctor’s origin on Gallifrey, his earlier incarnations, Amy Pond, his TARDIS and that the upstairs flat was really a disguised time ship.

Some time after Craig married his close friend Sophie and had a son named Alfie, the Doctor returned once again to investigate an attack by the Cybermen. They discovered Cybermen had been kidnapping people and converting them with power stolen by a Cybermat. Craig entered a life-and-death battle with the little Cybermat once it stopped playing possum and subdued it with the Doctor’s help. Though the Doctor tried pushing him away by explaining how dangerous he is, Craig comforted him by explaining how Earth would be in ruins if he didn’t help.

Canton Delaware

Canton Everett Delaware III was an ex-FBI agent who accompanied the Eleventh Doctor during the latter’s visit to the United States of America in 1969, having been kicked out of the Bureau for wanting to marry an African-American man. He served as the Doctor’s fourth companion during his investigation of the Silence. He quickly came to respect the Doctor during their quest to defeat the Silence, hoping to have another adventure with him in the future.

In 2011, Canton was invited by a future version of the Doctor to the place where the Doctor would be shot and killed. There he met River, Amy and Rory again, told them that it was definitely the Doctor and that he was really dead. He left them gasoline to burn the Doctor’s corpse. Canton also told them that he wouldn’t see them again, but they would see him. This was before they were going to meet his younger self later in their personal timelines.

Strax

Commander Strax is an 11-year-old a Sontaran warrior forced by the Doctor to serve penance to restore the honour of his clone batch. In order to do this, he gene-spliced himself to act as a nurse to humans, capable of successfully tending any wound or medical situation, including midwifery. The Doctor retrieved him from Zarusthra Bay, and took him to Demon’s Run. It was there that Strax regained his honour in battle against the Headless Monks, dying in the process, proud and satisfied. Strax was later resurrected by Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint to live in Victorian London with them, acting as their butler.

Jenny Flint

Jenny Flint is the human aide and wife of the Silurian Madame Vastra. They operated from London in the late 19th century. Prior to meeting the Doctor, Jenny had grown accustomed to a life of solitude — she was ostracised by her family due to her “preferences in companionship.” Sometime before 1888 the Doctor “saved her life” when she and Vastra first met and by 1888, she was living with Madame Vastra in London.

Capable with most forms of hand-held weaponry, she joined her mistress in helping reunite the Doctor and Amy Pond when the TARDIS took them both to Demon’s Run. She was later returned home by River Song.

Madame Vastra

Vastra was a female Silurian warrior who shared a house at 13 Paternoster Row with Jenny Flint, her maid and wife, in Victorian London. Alongside Jenny and the Sontaran Strax, Vastra investigated paranormal activities. Vastra was one of many people who owed the Doctor a debt; she had awoken during the construction of part of the London Underground and had wanted to take revenge on innocent tunnel workers for the deaths of her “sisters”. After Vastra had slaughtered at least five commuters, the Doctor convinced her not to give in to rage. He also told her of his species, the Time Lords, sharing many secrets about them. Vastra respected the Doctor and did as he said.

At some point, she hired Jenny as her maid. Vastra’s relationship with Jenny developed into a romantic one. Despite a begrudging respect for humanity, she did enjoy devouring them. She eventually became a consultant to Scotland Yard, solving cases that they couldn’t. Some referred to her by the title of “The Great Detective”. In this capacity, Walter Simeon speculated that she may have been the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, with Arthur Conan Doyle altering her and Jenny (presumably the inspiration for Watson) into human males, because portraying them as women at the time would have been ‘too unrealistic’ for the readers of the Strand.

Clara Oswald

Clara Oswald was a companion to the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors. According to the Doctor, Clara was simply “not possible”. Though assured by the eminent empathic psychic Emma Grayling and the TARDIS scanner that Clara was just an “ordinary girl”, the Doctor couldn’t believe that to be true and thought her to be “the only mystery worth solving”. The truth was somewhere in between. She was a physically ordinary human girl from the 21st century, but one who had made an extraordinary sacrifice to save the Doctor’s life. Upholding a personal credo not to walk away from danger in the service of others, she chose to enter the Doctor’s timeline in his tomb on Trenzalore in order to reverse the damage done to his timeline by the Great Intelligence. This act allowed the time winds to break her into millions of copies of herself that weren’t quite the “real” Clara, but nevertheless capable of combatting the Great Intelligence’s attack. After her heroism revivified the Doctor, he then returned the favour, guiding the original, 21st century Clara back out of his timeline.

This act of bravery by the “ordinary girl” created the “impossible girl” who so intrigued the Doctor, largely by repeatedly dying in front of him. It meant that the Doctor met her out of synch with his own timeline. The Eleventh Doctor alone met a couple of versions of her before meeting the original: Oswin Oswald, a hyper-intelligent crew member onboard the Alaska who was converted into a Dalek; and a barmaid/nanny called Clara Oswin Oswald in Victorian London. Though her assistance mostly went unnoticed by Doctors prior to the Eleventh, she met and subtly helped them all. Significantly, she was able to attract the attention of the First Doctor and convince him to steal the “right” TARDIS when he first left Gallifrey with Susan.

Following the events on Trenzalore, Clara met the Doctor’s secret and tenth incarnations and helped convinced them to save Gallifrey rather than destroy it. Later, despite repeated attempts by the Doctor to send her home, Clara aided him in defending Trenzalore by convincing the Time Lords to grant him a new regeneration cycle, saving his life once again.